Siege of Winchester (878)

The Siege of Winchester occurred on 7 January 878 during the Viking invasions of England. Guthrum and Ragnar Ragnarsson's East Anglian Viking army assaulted and sacked the West Saxon capital of Winchester, massacring thousands of civilians and forcing Alfred to flee to the Somerset marshlands.

Background
In 878, the Viking king of East Engle, Guthrum, launched an invasion of Wessex from his base in London to the northeast, while the Frisian Viking leader Ubbe Ragnarrsson led a fleet from southern Wales to attack Devon in Wessex's northwest. Guthrum's invasion fleet was destroyed by a miraculous storm on the Thames, giving the West Saxons hope that only Ubbe remained. Ubbe was defeated and slain at the Battle of Cynwit, and his force was destroyed. It seemed as if peace had been restored to the land, although the West Saxon ealdorman Uhtred of Bebbanburg violated the peace by leading an unauthorized raid on Cornwall, and was sentenced to fight his co-conspirator Leofric to the death by King Alfred the Great at a Witenagemot session on 6 January 878. A day later, on Saint Cedd's day, the two men were to fight in a public square of Winchester in front of a large crowd of spectators.

Siege
However, Guthrum's army had secretly been on the move, and he sent his warrior Brida ahead to scout out the city's defenses. Brida entered Winchester in disguise and noticed that the King, his nobles, and the populace were distracted by the fighting spectacle, so she headed back to the Danish army in the woods. She signalled the Danes to advance, and they charged through the open city gates on horseback. The Danes terrorized the city, and Ragnar and his men went through civilians' houses and massacred entire defenseless families; Christian priests were especially targeted. While Odda the Younger originally gave orders to protect the palace, he and the other ealdormen later fled on horseback, saying that the King could find his own way out. Many who were unlucky enough to find no horses in the stables were massacred, but Uhtred, Leofric, and Iseult of Cornwall succeeded in escaping the city with the nun Hild, whom they had saved from being raped by Vikings; Uhtred and Leofric pretended to be Danish soldiers taking the captives Iseult and Hild out of the city, and they slipped past drunk guards and headed to hide in the Somerset marshlands.

Guthrum and his men then entered the palace, where they massacred all but one of the priests, who was spared after Guthrum told him that he was now his god. Aethelwold Aetheling, the nephew of King Alfred and a rival claimant to the throne, approached Guthrum and said that he was the rightful king and was prepared to negotiate with the Danes, but Guthrum took the crown off of his head and said that the negotiations were over; he then beat him as Aethelwold said that he pledged his allegiance to him. The Vikings then walked through the streets, killing every person in sight until nightfall. Alfred and his loyal nobles and followers also fled to the Somerset Levels, from which they waged guerrilla warfare against the Danes until Alfred could amass a large army at Egbert's Stone.